


Idle Glances: Side Stories

by ColdNeon



Series: Broken Children Under Storm Clouds [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Gen, Implied Relationships, Lots of side stuff, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-23 08:34:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3761716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColdNeon/pseuds/ColdNeon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of one-shots tying into Idle Glances, but not necessarily taking place in the main storyline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Inojin's Paint Splatter

Being Inojin Yamanaka is great! Well, sometimes it’s not, but right now it’s pretty great. He’s spent a long time waiting for this day and now that it’s finally here, he’s elated beyond belief. His first set of painting brushes have finally arrived and his dad was holding them with the biggest smile on his face! How awesome was that? Inojin was 3 years old and this was his first big step towards following his dad and mum in becoming a super cool ninja just like them!  He smiled as his mum as she gestured to him to move closer to his dad for a photo. He smiled nice and big for the photo, making sure not to close his eyes. Once the photo was taken, he unwrapped the paint set and smiled broadly at the set of paint and parchment.

“Can I use them mum?”

“Of course Inojin, just don’t get it everywhere,” replied his mum with a smile, a big smile that touched her eyes.

 _Yessssss._ Inojin set up the paint and sat down bodily on the floor with his kit. May he’d draw a lion like his dad did! Maybe a bird, those were cool too. He scratched his head; there were so many ideas to choose from! Gently, so gently, he touched his brush into the small bottle of ink and brought it across to the paper. Unfortunately, he’d been a bit enthusiastic with his dip and a big glop of paint splashed onto the parchment. In the background Ino smirked and Sai gently shook his head, a small smile playing on his lips. Inojin gritted his little teeth before gently lowering his brush and trying to make a smooth curved line like he’d seen his dad make a hundred times. Except when he did it, the line was all blobby and uneven.

“Agh, daaaad, why is this so hard?” he whined. Sai moved over and sat down next to him, his legs crossed.

“Alright, so first off, ‘Jin,” he started, “Try not to splay the brush so much. Your rough technique is why the line is so uneven.” He pulled out his own paint set and laid it down, using the dry brush to demonstrate the correct way to run the brush. Inojin wiped off his own brush and repeated the soft brush that his father had done. _Why is this so hard? Crayons were so much easier to use!_ Once Sai approved of his imaginary brushes, he lightly dipped the tip of his brush into the ink, before drawing a straight line on the piece of paper. At least this time it was reasonably even and his father nodded gently.

“That’s the way, now let’s practice doing those a few more times.” So the two of them sat there and practiced drawing whilst Ino left to attend to her shift at the hospital, giving Inojin a kiss on the forehead and pecking Sai on the lips. The two continued their basic ink lesson with the younger Yamanaka getting progressively more frustrated with the state of his art. No matter how well he could picture things in his head, they weren’t coming out with the ink! It seemed to amuse his dad at the least, so that was something.

“Inojin, don’t expect yourself to get the hang of the ink straight away,” Sai smiled, “You’ll get there when you practice lots and then we can focus on the hard part, the jutsu.” Inojin grimaced, he didn’t want to wait! He wanted to be good at painting right now, not later; he wanted to be able to draw like his dad and make big creatures come flying out of his canvas.

 . . . 

**9 years later.**

“Inojin!” howled Chōchō over the screaming winds, “If you don’t draw that goddamn bird right now, we’re all gonna fall to our deaths.” She wasn’t wrong, the entirety of team 6 was hurtling rapidly towards the ground with no other way to stop them  from coming to bodily harm. Shaking his head clear of the memory, Inojin snapped back to attention and threw out his scroll of parchment and struggled to hold onto it through the plummeting wind. Shikadai was falling with his back towards the ground, his eyes closed. He’d evidently come to terms with the fact that he was going to die, so he wasn’t bothering to fight it.

Inojin wasn’t going to let his best friends die on account of his stupidity.

With practiced ease he drew a rough eagle and made sure to use the most space he could. They broke through the clouds and ground had started to become visible. Inojin could hear his heart pounding in his ears as he struggled to finish off the wings, making sure to give them some extra width. Finally the drawing was  complete and he ran through the hand seals before shouting out the jutsu name. He could barely hear the own words come out of his mouth and he watched in awe as the giant eagle burst free from the scroll and ceased his fall. He was exhausted from the massive expenditure of chakra but he had to focus on the task at hand. Chōchō managed to land roughly on the eagle’s wing, but rolled dangerously close to the edge of the eagle’s wing.

“Dammit Chōchō, don’t go falling off when I finally get the technique right,” he angrily shouted at the Akimichi

“Shut up and catch Shikadai!” she screamed back. With a dawning horror, Inojin realised that Shikadai had plummeted straight past the wing of the eagle, his eyes snapping open. He was evidently screaming bloody murder, but was falling too fast for Inojin to catch a word of what was being said. Knowing the Nara, it was probably a mouthful of profanities.

He guided the eagle to bank wildly, spiralling downwards faster than Shikadai was falling, barely managing to catch up with him as he dropped. Chōchō shouted for him to grab on and he managed to get a grip one of the eagle’s wings, just as Inojin was forced to ride the great bird upwards. Shikadai screamed a very long drawn out profanity as they flew back upwards into the sky. Inojin closed his eyes and let out his breath. That had been way too close. As they made their way back up to the mountaintop, Mirai was standing there, foot pinning the rogue shinobi to the ground, his face ground into the dirt.

“Good work, team. Glad to see you weren’t all mashed into paste.”

“It would have been nice to have some help, sensei,” muttered Shikadai, evidently not fully recovered from his near-death experience. Mirai didn’t respond, merely pointing to the sky behind them where an eagle was hovering gently with Sai and his genin team aboard it.

“We had them on backup in case something went wrong up here. Hokage’s orders.”

“Oh.” Inojin waved to his dad who gave him a salute before plunging his eagle towards the ground, his genin screaming all the way. Shikadai groaned and flopped down on the ground, mumbling under his breath. Chōchō’s hair was a mess, but she had a grin plastered on her face from side to side and it was evident that the fall had done nothing more than get the adrenaline going. Inojin sighed a breath of relief.

One day, he’d have that jutsu under control, and he’d never let his teammates come that close to the edge again. Inojin looked at the setting sun and smiled. One day.


	2. Hinata's Memory

“How long will you be gone?” Hinata asked quietly. The best thing about Naruto being the Hokage had been that he’d never really had to take off from the village for long periods. Whilst she still conducted shinobi missions, it meant that there was always at least one parent in the village. Especially with the young Mina around, it was really good to have the extra hand in helping around the house.

“It’ll only be a few weeks, it’s just a short diplomacy meeting Hinata, nothing to worry about really!” Naruto mumbled through a mouthful of ramen. Despite years of trying to ween him off his favourite food, it was still nigh impossible to stop his bad habit. “We’re going off to visit the outer regions of the Elemental Nations, and see if we can find any other groups to add to the Shinobi union!” He was overflying with enthusiasm and bit of noodles were flying on the table as a result. It brought a smile to her face, it was nice to see his childish nature still kept kicking underneath all of his Hokage duties.

“Naruto, I know you’re excited but don’t make a mess in front of Mina, she’ll pick up those bad habits.” As if to emphasise Hinata’s statement, Mina flipped her bowl of food gleefully. Sighing, Hinata reached over and righted her bowl, attempting to scoop some of the food back in whilst Naruto looked bashful.

“Sorry Hinata, that’s my fault.” She shrugged before smiling.                  

“So do you think you’ll find anyone in the outer nations?” Naruto gulped down another mouthful, barely pausing to chew.

“Well, we know there’s some people out there, but we’re not sure if they’re remnants of former nations, or exiles from the Elemental Nations.” Hinata nodded, it made a lot of sense that people looking to escape the ire of their former clan would flee to the furthest possible reaches.

“I’ll assume that it won’t just be you and Shikamaru then, right?” Naruto nodded gently, wiping a smear of food off Mina’s forehead, before planting a kiss on her head. The child blinked her big white eyes and smiled broadly, love and adoration plastered across her face.

“Nah, we’re taking an elite ANBU squad with us to keep us safe if the worst happens, but they’ve got me around so it’s no big deal if we get attacked.”

“Naruto, you have to be careful, you have two families to look after now!” Hinata grumbled, a little tense at is casual disregard for danger, “I love that you’re still youthful but you can’t go around blowing off your arms anymore, so you have to promise me that you won’t go putting yourself in unneeded danger!” The blonde smiled before leaning in to kiss her on her nose. The toddler wrinkled her nose and waved her arms around trying to interrupt her parents.  

“Ew Mama don’t kiss Papa! He’s all gross and has boy germs!” Naruto smirked and turned his affection on his daughter, plastering kisses all over her face as she squealed and tried to jump out of her chair. However her escape plan was thwarted by her mother who  had snuck around behind her and blocked her route of escape.

“We’ve stopped your escape, now what’re you going to do Mina?” crowed the elder Uzumaki. Mina looked around desperately, before jumping out of her chair and making a dive for the door. Midway through the air she found an arm around her waist, halting her progress entirely, despite her ferocious wriggling. Naruto grinned victoriously as he swung her around his head, before gently passing her off to her mother who took her and placed her on her shoulders. Hinata smiled and was thankful for the high roof as she ran around the room with the girl on her shoulders, cackling wildly.

Finally, Hinata placed her daughter onto the floor and kissed her forehead. “Off to bed with you Mina, make sure to say goodnight to your brother and sister.” Mina nodded her head wildly and ran off into the other room without a word. Hinata’s smile grew until she heard a yelp and a crashing sound. Naruto and her exchanged a worried look and rushed into the other room to find Himawari lying in a crumpled bunch on the floor with the littler girl sitting on top of her. Naruto placed a hand over his mouth in an effort to hold back his laughter whilst Hinata had no such luck, bursting into a peal of laughter that distracted both of the younger girls from their squabble.

“Mama!” Himawari whined, “Mina distracted me while I was practicing my chakra focus on the roof!” Oh, well that explained the loud crashing and yelp. Hinata went straight into mothering mode and looked over at the small white-eyed girl who was grinning widely at her conquering of her bigger sister.

“Mina-chan, what have I told you about interrupting your sister’s practice?”

The youngest Uzumaki blushed and held the bashful expression as she replied, “Not to do it…”

“So why’d you make your sister fall of the roof then, hm?” Hinata delicately placed one finger on her lip as she knelt down in front of the girl. “I’m gonna have to punish you now, sadly.” The little girl’s white eyes stretched to their limit as she started to panic, no doubt envisioning bizarre punishments that her parent’s might encroach on her. Hinata took a big breath and activated her byakugan for full scare factor.

“No ice cream for dessert tomorrow!” Mina’s jaw dropped and she jumped off her sister hurriedly while Himawari punched the air triumphantly. Naruto made a ‘cut-that-out’ gesture at her and she ducked her head, embarrassed that she’d been caught. The littlest girl made like she was going to protest the decree, but decided not to fight her mother’s orders. Doing so usually ended in being tickled until one gave up.

Mina bounded out of the room to say goodnight to Boruto, who was running through hand-seals with a book in front of him. Much like his father, he had problems memorising the hand motions, but he was determined to not just rely on one set to get him through life. Besides, his father was still firmly refusing to teach him the jutsu on the grounds of it being too dangerous.                 It didn’t stop him from learning every other technique that he could get his hands on, something that had left Naruto more than a little exasperated.

With the children finally dealt with a little, Naruto smiled and reached out his hand to Hinata, pulling her to his arms, placing a small kiss on her face, bringing a smile to her face. She stood up on tip-toes, kissing his nose gently before, pulling him onto the balcony, looking out over the quiet night. He brushed his hand over her jaw, running a finger up her jawline. “I love you Hinata.”

His voice was soft in the night air and Hinata kissed him softly on the cheek. They rocked back and forth gently under the night sky, whispering to each other.

“I love you too Naruto.”

. . .

There was a soft rapping on the door and Hinata groaned. Even after all these years, children and work, she was still not a morning person. She rolled over and her hair draped down over her face.  

“Please let them go away,” she whispered, but even as the words passed her lips, that insistent knocking was there once more. Sighing, she got up and grabbed a hair tie off her bed side cabinet. At least that way she’d look a little less tired. Struggling out of the bed, she made her way into the hallway and slowly walked down the hall, before sliding the door open. Standing in front of her was Sasuke, whose eyes were a raw red. Hinata put a hand on her mouth. _Had something happened to Sakura? Are the kids okay?_

“Hinata, I’m so sorry.”

And suddenly it all made sense. Hinata collapsed to the ground as tears started to well up and pour down her face. All she could think about was that last night of him being home with her and telling her how much he loved her.

Now that was never going to happen again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops.

**Author's Note:**

> Fluffy Yamanaka moments! 
> 
> Hope you enjoy this intermission between this and the next Idle Glances update.


End file.
